


Hashimada Happenings

by secondmeteor



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24104458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondmeteor/pseuds/secondmeteor
Summary: Ficlets posted for Hashimada Happenings 2020 on Tumblr.
Relationships: Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 96
Kudos: 223





	1. Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter titles are the names of the prompts I used for each of the ficlets. Thanks to the mods for organizing this event!

The resounding CLASH of steel against steel reverberated through Madara’s bones. He grimaced, holding his ground against Hashirama’s deadly two-handed strike, but his opponent was too strong; he was forced to duck to the side to gain some space, twisting to get his blade up, panting in the smoky air.

It wasn’t so long ago that this deadly dance with Hashirama had been almost enjoyable – and not so long before _that_ , sparring with him had been something to look forward to – and even now, Madara could appreciate this as something that at least was clean and uncomplicated. He tried to kill Hashirama; Hashirama tried to kill him. They were both made for this, both knew the steps of the dance by heart, anticipating each other in a way that was almost intimate. But now, Madara’s clan was on the brink of collapse, exhausted from fighting and looking to him for protection – and the need to protect his clan made him desperate. He knew it was evident in the way he was fighting, hard and ugly, still clawing his way through the battle with his chakra down nearly to nothing. His only comfort was that Hashirama, too, had abandoned his chakra-eating Mokuton and was reduced to meeting him strike for strike with kunai and sword.

The next exchange of blows brought them close together, close enough that Madara could see the flames of his clanmates’ jutsu reflected in Hashirama’s clear brown eyes – eyes that slid smoothly away from Madara’s. Hashirama was used to fighting against the Sharingan; he knew better than to look directly into the eyes of an Uchiha while in combat. But something was different in this battle. Maybe it was Madara’s exhaustion that made him turn away too slowly, letting the blade of Hashirama’s sword graze the outside of his wrist; maybe it was his gasp of pain that made Hashirama glance back up at his face; maybe Hashirama, too, had made the mistake of thinking of a time when their friendship had been the brightest part of their lives, forgetting himself enough to look, just for an instant, right into Madara’s eyes.

That instant was all Madara needed.

As their world spun and twisted in the red-and-black whorls of the Sharingan, Hashirama called to him, “I still have enough chakra to break a genjutsu!”

“Then I’ll make it a genjutsu you won’t want to leave,” Madara replied.

By the time he had finished speaking, he had faded completely from Hashirama’s consciousness, now existing only as an unseen observer within the genjutsu world. From the formless red vortex of the Sharingan, trees appeared, sprouting up around Hashirama almost like his Mokuton; but unlike the Mokuton, these trees were stately and neat, grown for nature and not for battle. As if reflecting the season of the real world, the genjutsu trees bore the tiny, delicate leaves of early spring. A clear blue sky melted into place above them, while below, the ground fell away abruptly – and Madara recognized this place. This was the clifftop where Hashirama had once spoken to him of a village.

Madara should have left to allow the genjutsu to play out, feeding off of the desires of Hashirama’s heart as it was designed to do, and returned to the battlefield while his adversary languished in his trap. Instead he lingered, just for a moment, curious in spite of himself…and watched as a shadowy figure began to form next to Hashirama on the clifftop. Who was it that Hashirama wanted beside him in this dream world, here in this place where Hashirama himself had once spun a dream? Madara knew the answer even before he watched his own features take shape on the clifftop.

It would have made sense to see the boy he had once been – his secret friendship with Hashirama was still one of his most cherished memories, loathe though he was to admit it, and he knew Hashirama had treasured that time as well. But in this dream world, both he and Hashirama looked like the adults they were now, standing side by side and smiling as though they weren’t bitter adversaries. The cool spring breeze stirred their hair; Hashirama reached out and caught a leaf as it blew past, held it out to his companion with a laugh. Genjutsu-Madara held the leaf up to his face, squinting through a hole in the green surface, and looked down at – yes, laid out below the cliff was the bare outline of a village, incomplete and fragile but unmistakably there. This was Hashirama’s one-time dream in its completion: Uchiha and Senju joined together in a shared village, protected by the two of them, standing sentinel on this clifftop where they could see clearly into the distance.

_No_ , Madara realized – this wasn’t the completion of Hashirama’s dream; this was just the beginning. The two of them had never really talked about more that this, back when they had the opportunity. But if Hashirama had held onto that same dream for so long…could there be more? Against his better judgement, Madara sped up the passage of time within the genjutsu world, until the leaves on the trees looked green and full and the sun beat down mercilessly above them. Now the village below had grown, with a few more solid-looking buildings and the beginnings of a wall stretching out from the cliff. The face of the cliff had changed, as well – now _face_ was a much more literal description. The massive carving was clearly still unfinished, its features blocky and undefined, and the top of the cliff was littered with tools and ropes.

“I think it looks pretty accurate already,” Hashirama said. “In fact, I think the sculptors might be done with it.”

“Very funny,” deadpanned genjutsu-Madara, and with a shock Madara realized: that was supposed to be _his_ face down there. His counterpart continued, “I still have no idea how you convinced me this would be a good idea.”

“Carving your face on the mountain, or becoming leader of the village?”

“Both!”

Hashirama laughed, joyful and uninhibited, the way Madara hadn’t heard him laugh in close to a decade. “It’s all thanks to my _incredible_ powers of persuasion, I guess,” he replied, and Madara felt numb. Hashirama wanted _him_ to lead this imaginary village?! How did he think the Senju clan could possibly trust their worst enemy to protect them? How could _Hashirama_ trust him?

Even within a dream world, Madara couldn’t imagine how this plan would lead to anything other than disaster. But Hashirama must have some idea of how it could work…and so, once again, Madara pushed the dream forwards into the future, making the leaves on the clifftop turn orange and brown and the ground underneath show signs of frost. The face on the cliff below was farther along now, crudely but unmistakably him, complete with a spiky mane of hair that must have been hell on the imaginary sculptors. The village hadn’t changed much from the last vision, but the wall now stretched farther through the forest, a hopeful distance away from the existing buildings.

“Madara!” Hashirama called, excitement in his voice.

There, sure enough, was Madara’s genjutsu counterpart, heading up a path in the trees along the cliff – not, Madara noted, directly up the face of the cliff the way they’d climbed it as children. That made sense: he probably wanted to avoid his own face. Those spikes looked dangerous.

Hashirama was running to meet him, arms outstretched as if to embrace him, but pulled back at the last minute, instead wrapping his arms around himself awkwardly. “Welcome back!” he said instead. _That’s odd_ , thought Madara, but couldn’t exactly pinpoint what was off about the interaction.

“I thought I’d find you up here,” said genjutsu-Madara, smiling but still reserved – this version of himself wasn’t completely inaccurate, Madara had to admit.

“How did the talks go?” asked Hashirama.

“You’ll be pleased, I think. The Nara clan wants to join.”

“That’s fantastic!” Hashirama exclaimed, and Madara mentally corrected himself: genjutsu-Madara wasn’t accurate at all. He should be a terrible negotiator.

“How was the village while I was gone?” asked the imitation Madara.

Hashirama’s eyes shone as he answered, “We’ve been making a lot of progress with the school. I think we’ll be able to start the first students by the winter!”

“Excellent. I already have some ideas for the first few teams.”

Now this – Madara knew he was being foolish, playing around with his own genjutsu like this – but this was something he needed to see. For one final time he drew the world through time until the leaves were gone from the trees, replaced by a thin blanket of glittering snow under a sky that was blue and cold as metal. He looked around for Hashirama, expecting him to be trailing a set of young shinobi like ducklings, and instead to his disappointment found – Hashirama, alone. Had genjutsu-Madara finally abandoned his friend, as the real Madara had done so many years ago? Could reality not be kept at bay even in this world of Hashirama’s own making?

“What are you doing up here, Hashirama?” It seemed that genjutsu-Madara hadn’t cleared out after all; here he was now, appearing out of the forest like a specter. “I thought you hated the cold.”

Hashirama didn’t turn to look at him, instead looking out at the village below, now draped in snow and trailing thin lines of smoke into the sky. “I’m afraid, Madara,” he said, suddenly sounding as fragile as the tiny new village. “I couldn’t stay still down there. What if things don’t turn out the way we planned?”

Genjutsu-Madara walked over to stand at the edge of the cliff as well, and blew a tiny fireball into his hands to warm them – and then held his hands out to Hashirama, who, very cautiously, positioned his own hands so they were hovering just over genjutsu-Madara’s, soaking up the warmth. “We’ll figure it out,” said genjutsu-Madara, looking into Hashirama’s eyes; Hashirama looked back, trustingly. “Together. Isn’t that what you told me?” And he slowly raised his hands so that his palms were brushing against Hashirama’s. The sight made Madara feel inexplicably uneasy.

“Yes,” murmured Hashirama, curling his fingers against genjutsu-Madara’s. “Together.” And he leaned forward, his action mirrored by genjutsu-Madara, their hands still joined between them…and then Hashirama was kissing the illusion, gently and carefully, with his eyes closed.

The sight shocked Madara so badly that he suddenly found himself _existing_ , standing beside Hashirama and his genjutsu-self on that cold clifftop – and just as he considered obliterating his illusory self, completely irrationally, Hashirama opened his eyes and stared right at Madara with eyes that no longer contained a shred of warmth.

“This is the real you,” said Hashirama, “Isn’t it.”

Before Madara could react, a burst of chakra erupted from Hashirama and clawed the world to shreds with hands like branches; as the genjutsu fell away, Madara felt himself thrown back by the force of Hashirama’s chakra and hit the ground hard.

He scrambled to get up, certain that he needed to defend himself from the attack that was surely coming – but when he looked for his opponent, he found Hashirama on his knees in front of him, tears streaming down his ash-stained face.

Now was the moment to attack, to end this battle decisively; instead Madara said, hoarsely, “Even now? You still hold onto that dream, even now?”

“Of course,” Hashirama replied, his voice sounding wooden. His eyes were looking somewhere in the vicinity of Madara’s chest; he wouldn’t make the mistake of looking at his eyes again. “I’ll never give up on it. Madara, I want you to know that.”

“It’s impossible!”

“You’ve seen it,” Hashirama pressed. “We could make it a reality.”

For a moment, Madara really considered it – and in that moment, he wondered what dreams he would spin in the grip of his own genjutsu. He wanted it, he had to admit that; wanted it so badly he could almost taste it. But the taste of blood in his mouth was stronger.

“It’s impossible, Hashirama,” he repeated, and finally managed to drag himself to his feet, blood dripping sluggishly from the wound on his wrist. “You’ve killed too many of my people for there to ever be peace between us.”

“Then this won’t end until one of us is dead!”

“It won’t end today,” said Madara, and disappeared in a burst of smoke.


	2. Uchiha clan/Senju clan

Izuna was blindfolded. He _hated_ being blindfolded.

Alright, so he’d made a little bit of a mistake. Maybe he’d been just a tiny bit too reckless, sneaking around the borders of the Senju camp, trying to gather some information the Uchiha could use in their future attacks. His Sharingan should have given him an early warning, but Izuna supposed the Senju clan must have grown sneakier with their traps lately, because he hadn’t seen this one coming – probably the work of that tricky asshole Tobirama. Now Izuna was stuck here, blindfolded with a cloth covered in chakra seals, hands tied with more of the same to prevent him from weaving signs, waiting for Butsuma Senju to decide what to do with him. From the reputation of the Senju clan, Izuna had actually expected to be executed immediately – he wasn’t certain what had stayed Butsuma’s hand, but by logic, they had to be keeping him only long enough to interrogate him. Which meant that, at fourteen, he might be spending his last night on earth alone and tied up in an enemy camp. But it was fine; it was all fine; he was just going to wriggle out of these bindings and be on his way, no problem. Just as soon as he could loosen this stupid blindfold.

“Quit moving,” hissed a sudden voice in the darkness.

Izuna went still, just for a second, his heart pounding in surprise – and then, just to be contrary, resumed his squirming with renewed vigor. The voice above him sighed. Abruptly, Izuna’s wrists were seized and held still despite his thrashing; in an instant Izuna felt the cords binding his hands tighten and then go slack. Before he could fully register his freedom, his blindfold was torn away as well to reveal a face in the murky darkness in front of him. Brown hair cut to the shoulders, brown eyes and an anxious expression: Izuna recognized him instantly as the Mokuton user Senju Hashirama, oldest son of Butsuma and one-time friend of Izuna’s brother.

“Put me under a genjutsu so I can talk to you,” demanded Hashirama in a whisper, and Izuna immediately activated his Sharingan. Once inside his genjutsu, Hashirama would be under Izuna’s control – no matter the Senju boy’s intentions, he would be powerless in Izuna’s world. Just to confuse him, Izuna shaped the genjutsu world to mirror the real world, making use of the bare glimpse he’d be afforded in the darkness – and as a final touch, Izuna replicated himself until the room was packed with Izuna clones, all armed with kunai pointed at Hashirama’s throat.

“That’s much more comfortable,” said the real Izuna, twirling an illusory kunai in his hand.

Hashirama held up his hands to show he meant no harm, though they both knew he could do no harm to Izuna now even if he wanted to. “Relax, Izuna,” he said. “I’m here to help you escape.”

“Thanks,” Izuna replied, and held his kunai idly out in front of him. The clones surrounding them all leveled their kunai in unison, Sharingan spinning in myriad pairs of eyes. “But I’m not interested in walking into any more traps today. So tell me – why, exactly, would you help me?”

Despite the thicket of knives surrounding him – fake knives, of course, but their bite would feel quite real – Hashirama looked serious but unafraid. “I’m betraying my father to do this,” he said. “But I don’t want the conflict between our clans to escalate the way it would if we killed Tajima’s son.”

“Please,” scoffed Izuna, “You’ve already killed my younger brothers. What would killing me matter?”

Hashirama actually flinched visibly at this, but held his ground and replied steadily, “I’ve lost brothers to the Uchiha, too. I know how it feels. That’s exactly why I want this killing to _stop._ ”

“So you’re sparing me out of pity? Is that it? Try a better lie, Senju.”

“I’m serious,” said Hashirama, eyes fixed on Izuna amid the throng of clones. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Izuna snorted in disbelief and directed his army of clones to move in closer; Hashirama didn’t react, even as the nearest kunai blades began to gently brush his skin. “Let’s say I believe you,” Izuna said, watching Hashirama with Sharingan-enhanced eyes for the barest hint of a tell, anything that would reveal his true intentions. “Letting me go buys you nothing from me. I’m your enemy, and that means once I get back to my clan, I’ll get right back to trying to destroy yours. You let me go now, and one day I might kill your father, or your brother.” He jabbed his kunai out, stopping a hairs’ breadth from Hashirama’s eye. “I might kill you. So tell me, why would you do this?”

“Don’t be so sure of yourself,” Hashirama breathed, and for a moment Izuna could feel his chakra _pressing_ against the genjutsu, not quite enough to break it, but enough to let Izuna know he wasn’t as fully in control as he had thought. Feeling dizzy, Izuna backed up a step, and his line of clones lowered their weapons. Then, in the blink of an eye, Hashirama was back to normal, looking as harmless and placid as ever. “You’re right,” he told Izuna. “If I let you go, you _might_ kill me or my family, one day. Or, if I don’t let you go, your father and brother _might_ come here and kill us all in vengeance. All these things _might_ happen, or they might not. There’s only one thing I know for absolutely certain: if I let you die now, Madara will lose his last remaining brother.”

“And what do you care if he does?” demanded Izuna, shaken.

“He doesn’t deserve that,” said Hashirama, simply.

So it was about Madara – and really, Izuna could have guessed that. He didn’t understand what kind of strange obsession Hashirama had with his brother, but he also couldn’t spot a lie anywhere in Hashirama’s insane reasoning. “Fine. What did you want to tell me?”

“You have about ten minutes before the next guard shows up. There’s a gap in our patrols due east, so head that way until you’re out of the trees. Sunrise is in two hours. Think you can make it?”

That probably meant Izuna should head due west instead, and avoid whatever trap was laid for him – but as if reading his mind, Hashirama said, “If they catch you, they’ll make you tell how you escaped, and then we’ll both be dead. You can trust what I’m saying. Oh, and you’d better punch me in the face or something on your way out.”

“Sure,” said Izuna, relishing the thought. “I’ll make it nice and convincing.”

Hashirama grimaced – it probably wasn’t hard to tell what Izuna was thinking, that time. “Leave me in a nice genjutsu at least, will you? And…give your brother a message for me. Tell him – ” He paused, biting his lip in thought. “Tell him: ‘we’re still the same’”.

“Whatever,” Izuna muttered, having absolutely no desire to get in the middle of whatever was going on between his brother and the obviously crazy, unfairly powerful heir to the Senju clan. He was going to have to keep a closer eye on Madara after this, that was for certain. Izuna saluted lazily, threw out a casual, “See you on the battlefield, Senju,” and melted away, back into the real world.

Hashirama’s instructions turned out to be legitimate, and though Izuna did manage to make it back to his clan, he never did deliver Hashirama’s message. But years later, on a cratered battlefield, when Izuna felt his life draining slowly through the ragged wound in his belly and watched Hashirama extend a hand to Madara, he would remember this conversation and answer his brother’s desperate look with a single nod of assent.

\---

Tobirama thought he’d concealed his presence perfectly. But had had to grudgingly admit, as he held his hands in the air in surrender, that the bodyguard of the Tsuchikage – Mū, he remembered – put him to shame on that score.

“Don’t try anything, Konoha spy,” said Mū, from behind the wrappings covering his mouth. Tobirama wondered if those wrappings had anything to do with the way he disappeared so entirely, fooling even Tobirama’s finely honed sensory abilities.

“I’m not a spy,” Tobirama protested tiredly, knowing as he said it that it was probably futile. Alright, he’d been sneaking around the outskirts of Iwa territory, but only to make sure the newly-formed village wasn’t trying to do anything stupid – like collecting additional tailed beasts to add to their arsenal. “There’s no need for us to fight; I’ll leave of my own free will.”

Mū’s eyes, practically the only part of him left uncovered by the wrappings, narrowed in suspicion. “Your presence here is in violation of the agreement between our two nations.”

“A mistake on my part,” Tobirama acknowledged. “Won’t happen again.”

“No,” said Mū, “It won’t.”

A tiny dot of bright white light appeared between Mū’s hands, and in the blink of an eye expanded into a glowing white cube… and Tobirama finally recognized the deadly Jinton wielded by the Tsuchikage. _Shit,_ he thought, trying to keep his panic at bay – had he known that Mū could do that? – and in the instant he had before the jutsu was released, he cast his senses out, searching desperately for a Hiraishin tag near enough for him to reach. There was nothing, nothing for him to jump to – he reached for one of his tagged kunai, knowing that by the time he managed to throw it, he would already be reduced to dust – there was a bright flash of light, and Tobirama had only enough time to regret that his life would end in such a stupid way – 

The next thing he felt was the sensation of being suddenly and violently lifted into the air. Surprised to find himself alive, Tobirama realized he was inside of a bright blue, gigantic fist, suspended in the air; directly below, a perfectly square crater now marked the spot where Tobirama had been standing a moment before.

“Mū of Iwagakure, I believe,” said a voice from above him.

Tobirama groaned inwardly. Relieved though he was that he’d been rescued, he was less than delighted to find that his rescuer was none other than Uchiha Madara.

“Uchiha Madara…-sama,” said Mū, looking as though the honorific tasted bad in his mouth. Tobirama immediately felt a little better: the upside of being rescued by Madara was that now Mū had to deal with him, too. Tobirama knew from bitter experience it wasn’t easy to stare down an enemy when said enemy was towering over you from inside of a glowing, blue, half-skeletal Susano’o. Nevertheless, Mū tried his best. “You’re trespassing on our territory!”

“Trespassing? Me?” said Madara, almost completely deadpan. “I was simply on my way back from the peace negotiations I was conducting with your Tsuchikage. Negotiations we _all_ want to succeed – isn’t that right, Mū? So,” he continued, giving the Iwa shinobi no chance to reply, “You will overlook this little incident, and Konoha will overlook the fact that you tried to kill the Hokage’s younger brother.”

He couldn’t quite tell, but Tobirama thought Mū was grinding his teeth behind those bandages. Still, there was nothing he could do; no shinobi in their right mind, aside from his brother – and there was honestly a debate there to be had about whether Hashirama really _had_ a right mind – would cross Uchiha Madara without very good reason. Eventually, Mū dipped his head and said grudgingly, “…Very well. But if I catch you in Iwa territory again, I won’t be so lenient.”

“Yes, yes. Run along, now,” Madara replied. “I’ll be keeping an _eye_ on you, Mū.” Not that Tobirama knew for certain, but he was pretty sure whatever concealment trick the Iwa shinobi had been working earlier was enough to fool the Sharingan. However, the abilities of the Uchiha were still mysterious to the clans outside of Konoha – and even Tobirama, who had been fighting against the Sharingan all his life, really had no idea what kind of grotesque jutsu Madara could perform with that Mangekyō of his. In any case, Madara’s veiled threat seemed to work: Mū leaped into the trees behind him instead of melting into his surroundings the way he had before, and Tobirama could feel his chakra moving rapidly away.

Before Tobirama could do or say anything, the blue fist holding him up abruptly evaporated, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground. Dusting himself off, Tobirama looked over at his rescuer in annoyance, only to see Madara down on one knee, clutching his eyes with one hand, the remnants of the Susano’o dissipating around him. Tobirama took an uncertain step in his direction. “Are you…alright?”

“I’m fine,” snapped Madara, though he certainly didn’t look it. He managed to get to his feet, unsteadily, and when he finally brought his hand away from his face, Tobirama could see both hand and face were smeared with blood. A chill ran down his spine: more confirmation, as if he needed it, that the Mangekyō was as poisonous to its users as it was to everyone else. Although, on the other hand…that jutsu had just saved his life. Tobirama had his beliefs, but before all else, he had to acknowledge the facts.

“…Thanks for your help,” he managed to grit out.

Madara looked as uncomfortable to be thanked as Tobirama was to be thanking him. “Yeah, well. I only did it for your brother, so don’t go thinking you can count on it. Can we just get out of here?”

“By all means,” said Tobirama, relieved, and jumped into the trees, Madara following closely behind. They headed in the direction of Konoha, but it was slow going, with Madara still shaky on his feet as they leapt through the branches. Ordinarily, Tobirama would have ignored him. Even with the founding of the village, it was difficult to forget the injuries Uchiha and Senju had done to one another in the past – and Madara had never been able to overlook the fact that Tobirama had nearly killed his younger brother. But Tobirama’s curiosity overcame his better judgement and made him ask, “Did that jutsu always take so much out of you?”

Madara, concentrating on his footing, only grunted in reply. That was all Tobirama had expected to get, but to his surprise Madara told him, “It gets worse every time. Eventually I’ll go blind from it.”

“Huh…and you wasted one on me?” Antagonizing Madara like this was a bad idea, but…it was also pretty entertaining.

His travel companion spared a moment to shoot a bloody glare in Tobirama’s direction. “Like I said, it wasn’t for you,” and then added almost to himself: “I don’t want to find out what losing his last brother would do to Hashirama.”

Now that, somehow, was both completely out of character for Madara and also completely what Tobirama would expect from him when it came to Hashirama. And with that thought, a large number of anomalous observations suddenly clicked into place, forming a satisfying but also entirely horrifying conclusion. “You must really love my brother,” Tobirama said, before he could think about what he was saying.

He was treated to the sight of Madara completely missing his landing on the next branch and plummeting ungracefully through the canopy. Tobirama, one hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing, peered down to see Madara standing sideways on the trunk, glaring at him. “Tobirama, if you say one more word about that, _especially_ to your brother, I will trap you in a genjutsu until you die of old age!”

Tobirama had to force down laughter again, and wondered if this was what it felt like to go insane. Much as it turned his stomach to think of an Uchiha – particularly this one – pining after his brother, he was deeply enjoying this new leverage he suddenly exerted. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he called down, trying unsuccessfully to keep the amusement out of his voice. Really, he should be considerably more horrified – but then, he’d already more or less come to terms with the way Hashirama was around Madara, the ridiculous lengths he was willing to go to for his childhood friend. Discovering this was almost a relief; in some ludicrous way, it made a lot of sense.

While Tobirama was pondering this, Madara gained the high branches again and set off towards Konoha, not looking at Tobirama or waiting for him to follow. Trailing behind him, Tobirama considered something completely novel for him: voluntarily helping Madara. On the one hand, it would destroy his new leverage; on the other hand, watching his brother and Madara trip over themselves trying to figure this out would probably be unbearable. It was going to happen, inevitably, of that much Tobirama was certain; he could at least hasten the process. And – well, Madara had just saved his life.

“Hey, Madara,” he called ahead of him. No response. “You know he’s in love with you, too.”

At that, Madara’s shoulders stiffened, a little, but he didn’t turn around, and his only response was a gruff, “I _told_ you to shut up about it.”

He’d probably just made things worse – _oh, well_. Tobirama wondered if Izuna had already come to the same conclusion as him; Izuna, of all people, would definitely share this mix of revulsion and amusement. Tobirama resolved to have a chat with him when they returned to Konoha. If he had to deal with the inevitable fallout of this disaster in the making, it would at least be nice to have a cup of tea with someone while watching the whole thing unravel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out this [art](https://thelistening.tumblr.com/post/617828227231236096/some-quick-sketches-inspired-by-nightofthemeteor?is_highlighted_post=1) by my buddy for some very unimpressed Uchihas :)


	3. River/Mountains

Hashirama blinked awake to the sight of a kunai pointed directly at his forehead. His vision, still a little blurry, slowly followed the blade of the knife upwards to the hand that was holding it, and then the arm attached to the hand, until finally his eyes came to rest on a boy around his age with a face surrounded by spiky black hair.

That, Hashirama thought, was a little strange. The last he could remember, he’d been in the middle of a fierce battle, not sleeping flat on his back with a kunai tickling his nose. That was right: his clan had been fighting the Uchiha clan – fighting on the surface of the river, dancing over rocks and sprays of water in the heavy current…and…he’d been hit by something, hadn’t he? Some kind of jutsu, but the details were all still fuzzy. Whatever he’d been hit with, he must have lost consciousness and fallen into the river. Hashirama realized he was still wearing all his armour, heavy as stones around his limbs, so how had he managed to drift to shore instead of drowning in the river? Unless…

“Did you save me?” he croaked at his kunai-wielding captor.

The boy bending over him brought a second hand up to grip his kunai, ready to drive the point through Hashirama’s skull. “Yes, I did,” he said, as if daring Hashirama to question this claim, “So you’d better be grateful to me, Senju. _Don’t_ try anything.”

Hashirama blinked up at the boy in mild affront. “Hey, I wasn’t going to!” He should probably be a little more concerned about the situation he was in, but he was almost definitely slightly concussed, and his limbs felt too heavy to do anything anyways. “Your hair looks kind of cool.”

“Yours looks super lame,” the boy shot back instantly, and then looked frustrated with himself. “I mean – swear you won’t try to use any jutsu, and I’ll let you up.”

“Hmm. But it’s nice down here…”

The kunai jabbed insistently at his face. “Swear!”

“Alright! I swear on my honour as a shinobi I won’t use any jutsu.” Black eyes stared down at him suspiciously; the kunai didn’t budge. Hashirama sighed. “I swear on my brother’s life.”

Finally, the boy pulled back enough to allow Hashirama some room to move, although he kept his kunai at the ready. Though Hashirama would really have preferred to just stay lying down, he gingerly pushed himself into a sitting position, fighting a wave of dizziness at the motion: he really did need to figure out where he was, and who was with him. From the way he acted, this boy was an enemy of his; given the battle that had just taken place, and the style of his clothes, he had to be an Uchiha. And if that was the case, he must have been swept downriver along with Hashirama – but that didn’t explain why Hashirama was now apparently his captive instead of just dead. “If you don’t trust me, then why did you save me?”

It was a perfectly reasonable question, in Hashirama’s opinion, but the strange boy was looking at him in exasperation. “Do you have any idea where we are?”

“Uhh…” Hashirama finally looked around, taking stock of their surroundings. His immediate impression was that wherever they were, it was actually quite lovely. He was sitting at the edge of a glittering lake, gentle wavelets lapping at his feet; the shore was lined with trees swaying in a soft breeze; and ahead, Hashirama could see the rocky cliffs of the mountains at the edge of Senju territory. A deep groove in the cliffside marked the path of the river that had taken them here, cutting a path through the forest until finally reaching the lake. “We must have been swept out a long way,” he said, wonderingly.

“Don’t you know anything?” snapped the boy. “We’re in the forest of the Kyūbi.”

“Oh,” said Hashirama, trying to figure out how that fit with the boy’s odd behaviour. Naturally, he knew that the forest here belonged to the nine-tailed fox – the Senju clan generally avoided these woods out of respect – but that didn’t explain why he was still alive. “So…you didn’t want to kill me in a sacred place?” he guessed.

“No, you idiot! I saved you because it’s a death sentence to be in here alone!”

That seemed a little ridiculous, given the peaceful surroundings, but Hashirama knew as well as anyone that appearances could be deceiving. “Are you sure? I always heard the Kyūbi won’t attack as long as he’s left alone.”

“Maybe that’s what _your_ clan tells you,” said the boy, his eyes wide and deadly serious, “But to mine, the Kyūbi is a monster. He hates us because of the Sha – ” He cut himself off, looking frustrated.

“Come on,” Hashirama coaxed, “I already know you’re an Uchiha. If we’re going to be helping each other, you might as well tell me your name.” The boy only frowned at him; Hashirama extended a hand towards him and said, “I’m Hashirama. Senju Hashirama, but you knew that.”

The boy pointedly ignored his outstretched hand, but he at least tucked away his kunai and folded his arms in front of his chest. “My name is Uchiha Madara.”

\---

“Okay, that’s it.”

Madara looked back at him in exasperation; Hashirama assumed his most mulish stance and refused to budge. Madara hissed angrily through his teeth and said, “What part of _we need to keep moving_ do you not understand?”

“The part where you’re limping on a clearly broken ankle,” Hashirama told him. “Sorry, but this is ridiculous – I’m not moving until you let me heal it.”

“I _told_ you,” Madara said, sounding as though he was keeping his voice down only with great effort, “We can’t use any jutsu, or else the Bijū – ”

“Yes, yes, the monsters will find us.” Hashirama could tell that if they ran directly across the lake, they could make it home in less than a day, but Madara wouldn’t let them either on the water or in the forest, ‘Because of the Bijū’. He probably wouldn’t be persuaded to change his mind on that score, but still – “The longer we’re here, the bigger the chance something will happen to us, right? If I heal your ankle, we can run around this lake in what, two days? If you let me _splint_ your ankle, it’ll probably take us a week. And if I do nothing, I guarantee you’ll be crawling to the mountains – how long do you think that’ll take?”

“ _Fine!_ Splint my ankle if you absolutely have to!” Madara jabbed a finger at him in warning. “But don’t try any tricks, Senju. Remember: you’ll never make it out of here without me.”

“No tricks,” Hashirama promised. He was actually pretty sure he could make it home on his own just fine. The forest didn’t feel particularly frightening to him – it felt strange, a little unnerving, but it made him more curious than afraid. Besides, Madara had claimed the Kyūbi had a grudge against the Uchiha, specifically, so Hashirama was probably in greater danger with his new companion than without him. But Madara had saved his life, and it seemed unfair to just abandon him. “Could you hand me a kunai and some wire, please?” The Uchiha boy had relieved him of all his weapons while he'd been unconscious, but warily complied with this request.

Under Madara’s suspicious eye, Hashirama got to work, using the kunai to strip a fallen branch to use as a splint. When he was ready to set the ankle, he said, “I’m going to use a very light healing jutsu to help this along, alright? It doesn’t require much chakra, so it won’t attract anything, I promise.” Hashirama could be certain of that, because he’d already sneakily healed his own concussion while they walked.

“Alright, just keep your chakra down.”

“It’s going to hurt a bit,” Hashirama warned.

“I don’t care – just do what you have to.” Madara tipped his head back and looked at the sky instead of the injured leg stretched out in front of him. “I have to make it back,” he said, and repeated it to himself: “I have to make it back.”

“Are you that eager to go back to the battlefield?” Hashirama asked, a little sadly. This place was actually a lot more pleasant and peaceful than the war zone he was used to now; he would have liked to stay longer, if not for…

“My little brother,” said Madara, apparently forgetting, in this painful moment, that he wasn’t supposed to be talking so freely with his enemy. “I have to get back so I can protect him.” He let out a startled yelp as Hashirama pulled his wire taut around the splint.

His jutsu finished, Hashirama said, “I understand how you feel. I have a little brother, too.” He held out a hand to help Madara up. “So you can trust me to help you. We’ll both make it out of here.”

\---

As the sun set over the horizon and painted the lake in deep reds and purples, Madara called a halt.

“The Bijū come out at night,” he explained. “So we can’t travel until the sun is up, and we need to sleep in shifts so one of us is always keeping watch.”

Hashirama shrugged, still doubtful about the presence of vengeful beasts but willing to go along with Madara’s suggestions. He was also skeptical about Madara’s insistence that he take the first watch – he looked about ready to pass out – but obligingly curled up on the ground anyways, leaving Madara to guard his sleep.

He had no idea how long he slept before a sudden, unfamiliar sound woke him. He opened his eyes to darkness so deep he almost felt as though he could reach out and touch it. He looked upwards, and caught his breath: the night was moonless, but the sky was brilliant with stars, brighter and clearer than he’d ever seen before. For a long moment, Hashirama stared upwards and felt almost weightless.

Madara, leaning against a tree beside him, was fast asleep – so much for keeping watch. The sound that had woken Hashirama had come from the lake, he realized; the water was dark, but in the starlight Hashirama could just make out a strange bulge, almost like a wave moving through the water. The wave rose further from the surface of the lake, and Hashirama spotted _spikes_ protruding from the wave and realized it wasn’t a wave, but the back of a massive turtle, water sluicing off its shell. He watched, open-mouthed, as the turtle slid back beneath the water, leaving behind only ripples from its three massive, spiked tails.

\---

The forest ended abruptly at the edge of the cliffs in a small, unnatural clearing – unnatural because the trees here had been destroyed, ripped from their roots and scattered around by some terrible force.

“The Kyūbi,” said Madara, examining the trunk of a still-standing pine. Across the trunk were three deep, parallel gouges, each nearly as wide as Hashirama’s torso and still oozing sap.

Hashirama placed a hand on the damaged trunk, feeling the gentle tug of the tree’s life force elicit an answering pull from something inside of him. He ran a hand uneasily over the splintered bark. Over the last few days, he'd seen plenty more evidence of the Bijū, but none so obviously destructive. "Why would the Kyūbi do this? It's his forest."

“How should I know? He’s the Kyūbi; he destroys things.” Madara turned his back on the broken trees, facing the cliffs instead. "Come on, Senju. We still have to make it over those mountains before the sun sets."

Hashirama rolled his eyes - four days of travel and almost-friendly bickering, and Madara still refused to just use his given name. It was too bad, because Hashirama, for his part, was starting to like this boy with his determination and his fake bluster. But Madara was right: those trees looked like they'd been destroyed recently, and that meant the Kyūbi could still be nearby. Once over the mountains, they would be out of his forest, and safe - but first, they had to make it up a scree slope of shifting, loose rocks at the base of the cliffs proper. Hashirama kept an eye on Madara as they began the climb. This sort of terrain was the perfect place to aggravate an ankle injury, and he'd already learned that Madara wouldn't tell him if he was hurt.

They were maybe halfway up the slope – high enough to see above even the massive trees of this forest – when Hashirama felt a tremor move through the rocks under him. He froze; the loose boulders of the slope rattled against each other eerily in the wake of the tremor. Madara, climbing beside him now, looked over at him, and Hashirama saw his own feeling of mounting fear reflected back at him in Madara’s expression.

A second tremor hit, and with it a sudden wave of acrid, overwhelming chakra. In unison, Hashirama and Madara both turned to look behind them, and saw the forest blotted out by an enormous red eye.

Madara screamed something, but his voice was drowned out as the Kyūbi opened its gigantic mouth, revealing teeth the length of Hashirama’s arm, and roared. The force of that roar nearly knocked Hashirama off the mountainside; his head screamed in pain with the sound. He struggled to keep his footing amid the shifting rocks, and leapt blindly to avoid the swipe of a massive paw that landed in the space where he and Madara had been standing. Dodging claws and teeth, Hashirama forgot about the fox’s nine tails until one of them whipped out of nowhere and struck him with enough force to knock the wind out of him. He hit the rocks, momentarily stunned, and watched the gaping maw of the Kyūbi open above him – and then there was Madara, running in front of him, eyes flashing red. The Kyūbi went still; Hashirama saw his huge eye momentarily show the familiar pattern of a Sharingan.

“ _Run, Hashirama!_ ” Madara yelled. Gasping, Hashirama scrambled to his feet; in front of them, the Kyūbi backed up a step, shaking his head violently. Hashirama grabbed Madara by the arm and dragged him up the slope before the fox could recover. There was no cover on the mountainside, but if they could make it to the solid face of the cliffs above, maybe they could get out of the Kyūbi’s reach – but as they ran, another roar split the air, this time so full of rage and hatred that Hashirama felt it in his bones. The entire slope moved with the force of the Kyūbi’s anger; Hashirama lost his balance and fell, Madara hitting the stones next to him; boulders were tumbling down the slope, threatening to crush them; in desperation, Hashirama formed the seals of a Doton jutsu, throwing two slabs of rock over their heads like a crude roof. In moments, they were completely buried.

For minutes that felt like an eternity, Hashirama listened to the sound of stones crashing over them and the roars of the Kyūbi outside. He was crushed against Madara in the tiny space, but the darkness was so complete he couldn’t see the other boy even practically on top of him. In the darkness, all they could do was listen.

Finally, the sounds outside began to quiet: the roaring died down to a low growl, and the boom of the shifting rocks quieted to a pattering of small pebbles. Eventually, even these sounds gave way to complete silence. Hashirama was beginning to wonder if the Kyūbi had left when he heard a new sound, much closer to him – it was Madara, he realized, crying quietly in the darkness.

Hashirama opened his mouth, thought better of what he was going to say, and closed it again. “Madara…?” he said, cautiously. He could feel Madara shaking against him. He’d only known the Uchiha boy for four days, but in all that time he’d been so careful never to show weakness.

“We’re going to die down here,” Madara whispered, through his ragged breaths.

“We won’t die. We’re shinobi,” Hashirama reassured him, though even as he spoke, he was doing the calculations himself and coming up with a similar answer. The two of them could blast their way out of solid rock, but now the only thing keeping them from death was Hashirama’s flimsy stone roof; any destructive jutsu would likely get them crushed.

Madara must have worked through it too: there was no breaking out. “Some shinobi I am,” he said bitterly. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to die protecting my brother! What’s going to happen to him now?” More muffled sobs in the darkness, and then, in a bleak, exhausted whisper – “I knew I wasn’t going to make it back.”

Hashirama reached out a hand blindly and felt his hand land on Madara’s thick, wiry hair. “No,” he said, “I told you we’d both make it out of here.” He curled his fingers in Madara’s hair and felt the other boy lean into the touch, just a little. “You’ve saved me twice now, so it’s time for me to return the favour.”

He’d never done a jutsu quite like the one he was about to try, but somehow Hashirama felt utterly confident, strangely calm. He formed the hand seals and watched as a faint greenish light began to glow in the darkness – had he known the Mokuton gave off light? – illuminating Madara’s startled face less than an arms’ length from his. Hashirama wrapped his hands around delicate branches sprouting from the rock underneath them, coaxing them to grow stronger and higher. In moments, the two of them were surrounded by a thicket of leaves; Hashirama poured chakra into his tree and felt the branches above slowly moving through the rocks, pushing aside boulders and cracking solid stone. Normal trees could break down rock, given decades – Hashirama was merely speeding up the process. As the branches reached up through the rock, the trunk of the tree under them grew as well, lifting Hashirama and Madara gently through the layers of scree and finally back into the sun.

Hashirama blinked in the sudden light. The leaves that surrounded them were pale, nearly white – “Oh,” he said. “I guess this is what happens when you grow them in the dark.”

He looked over at Madara to see if he agreed with this assessment and found the other boy staring at him with an expression of open wonder, tear tracks drying on his face. “What is this?” he breathed.

Hashirama shifted in embarrassment, feeling suddenly warm. “It’s my ability,” he explained. “Like you and your Sharingan.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Nobody outside of my clan knows about it. I – my father wants me to use it in battle, but – I can’t control it well enough yet,” said Hashirama, a little regretfully.

“It’s beautiful,” said Madara earnestly, and Hashirama’s heart jumped in his chest.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling – and wonder of wonders, Madara actually smiled back.

\---

Despite looking over their shoulders for the Kyūbi every step of the way, Hashirama and Madara made it over the mountains without further incident, cresting the final ridge as the sun hovered at the edge of the horizon.

“Well,” said Hashirama, “What now?”

Madara shrugged. “We each go back to our clans, I guess. Tell our brothers we’re not dead.”

“See each other on the battlefield?”

“I guess so.”

They stared at each other, the wind at the top of the cliffs stirring their hair, until Madara blurted, “I wouldn’t have made it back without you, Hashirama. I don’t want to have to fight you.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” breathed Hashirama in relief.

“Plus, that ability of yours – I want that on my side!”

“I was thinking the same about you!”

“So…what do we do?”

Hashirama had no idea – this whole scenario was something he’d never even imagined might happen. Thinking about the unlikelihood of this friendship made him start to laugh, absurdly, until Madara joined in, covering his mouth with his hand to hide his snickering. “I don’t know,” said Hashirama when he’d calmed down a bit. “But I think we should meet again. Maybe one day we can get things to change.”

“Alright then – meet me at this spot, in let’s say, one week? At sunset.”

“Deal,” said Hashirama, and shook his new friend’s hand to seal the pact.

Gripping his hand, Madara said hesitantly, “I’m still not sure this is going to change anything. Our clans have been fighting for years – do you think it’s even possible for us to be friends?”

A few days ago, Hashirama would probably have denied it – but in that time, he’d seen things completely outside of his wildest dreams. “I think anything’s possible,” he said, and saw Madara’s lips quirk up in a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out [this](https://thelistening.tumblr.com/post/617935399565819904/some-digital-shape-carving-inspired-by-the-latest) super cool digital shape carving of the boys vs Kurama


	4. Izanagi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this ficlet for violence and character death.

The moon was full and bright overhead as Madara faced his best friend across the river they had just created and felt his face split in a crazed grin. He could feel exhaustion beginning to dig its claws into his flesh and knew his chakra was nearly drained, but even so, the excitement of battle was still running hot through his veins. Hashirama, panting and battle-worn, half his armour torn away, had matched him blow for blow in this battle – as Hashirama always had, ever since they’d been children. Though they’d fought each other almost incessantly throughout the years, this was only the second time they’d both gone all-out, and what a legendary battle it had been! Though Madara knew he was only the tiniest misstep away from death, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt more _alive_.

Across the river, Hashirama’s eyes flicked from his opponent to the river between them, gauging the distance. Madara could easily guess what he was thinking about, the sentimental fool: he had to be remembering the river from their childhood, where the two of them had skipped rocks and talked about peace. What naïve idiots they both had been. Madara tightened his grip on his weapons, his Gunbai in one hand and his kama in the other, and tensed in preparation to strike, watching Hashirama raise his sword and gather himself to do the same. Another ragged breath – Madara cried, “This time you’re not going to reach the other side!”

Both combatants lunged in unison, racing across the surface of the river to meet in the middle with a violent _CRASH_. Madara’s momentum carried him several steps further; he stumbled to a halt on the river, half-surprised to find himself unharmed. He turned behind him to see Hashirama lying face down on the surface of the water, struggling to rise, and allowed himself another smile.

“I’m the one still standing,” he panted. “Opposite from the last time.”

With a great effort, Hashirama pushed himself up on one arm to turn and look at Madara, standing triumphant over him just as Hashirama himself had once stood over a defeated Madara. “I just want to protect…the dream I finally realized…” he gasped. “I don’t want…anymore…”

‘Killing,’ he’d been about to say, most likely. Madara had heard plenty of that from him already. It wasn’t as if he disagreed – after all, as a child he’d completely embraced Hashirama’s ideals. Now, he hadn’t given up on those ideals, but he knew the outcome of Hashirama’s methods: he could see that no matter what his one-time friend said, Hashirama would always be killing for the sake of peace. Unless, of course, Madara relieved him of his duty.

“You look pretty depressed, Hashirama,” Madara observed, savouring his victory. It had been so incredibly hard-won, after all – it would be a crime not to enjoy the moment. “Can’t perk back up this time?”

As he spoke, Madara heard the slightest sound behind him, almost like a sigh. Despite his exhaustion, he reacted instinctively, whipping around and lashing out with the blade of his kama, and saw – Hashirama, poised to strike, instead of lying prone on the river as he had been an instant before. Madara gasped in shock at the same moment that Hashirama gasped in pain: the blade of Madara’s scythe was embedded in his chest.

Neither of them moved, locked in a deadly embrace, until finally Hashirama’s sword slipped from his hand and fell with a splash into the water below. Madara spared a glance behind him and saw Hashirama’s clone, still lying in the river behind him, turn to wood and begin to float away. He stepped back, pulling his kama from Hashirama’s chest with a sickening _squelch_ of bone and tissue. Hashirama fell slowly, almost gracefully, the way he fought, landing on his knees in front of Madara.

“Do you have enough chakra to heal that?” Madara asked warily, keeping his weapons at the ready. He’d thought Hashirama had been completely drained of chakra a few moments ago, but he’d surprised Madara with that clone.

Hashirama pressed a hand to his chest and stared, almost in shock, as the hand came away bloody. “I’m out,” he said, and sighed. “I had a chance, but – I couldn’t. I hesitated…”

“I’m the victor this time,” Madara told him, again. It didn’t feel quite as satisfying the second time. Even so – Hashirama had paused while Madara had struck. Wasn’t that the ultimate vindication of Madara’s vision? Even Hashirama, so keen to throw his life away in pursuit of his dream, couldn’t hold onto his ideals in the end.

As if agreeing with him Hashirama said, “I was too weak. I was supposed to protect the village, but…I couldn’t…” He closed is eyes briefly in pain, and said, “That’s why it should have been you.”

Even after all this time, hearing that still hurt, somehow, in the place deep inside where Madara had once harboured their shared dream. He ignored this and said, “You’ve got your priorities backwards, Hashirama. You’d kill to protect the village that was supposed to protect _us_?”

Hashirama’s next words came out laced with blood that trickled down his chin. “I thought I would. I _should_ have done it. I swore to protect our people – what’s going to happen to them now?” Bitterly, he said, “Why couldn’t I have just killed you?” Even as his body began to give way, he struggled to speak, to look at Madara, and so he ended up collapsing to one side.

“Don’t worry, Hashirama. I only wish to bring your people peace.”

“Madara, please…” Hashirama was near death, now, his eyes no longer seeing Madara at all. “Don’t destroy our dream. I wanted to endure, to watch over, but…it’s in your hands now. Don’t…”

Madara breathed out, into the silence. “Destroy our dream?” he said, although he knew there was nobody now to hear him. “No, Hashirama. A dream is exactly what I plan to build.”

No answer, of course – and Hashirama’s body was beginning to sink into the river. Madara knelt beside the corpse and gripped it by what was left of Hashirama’s armour, looking at the empty face of his greatest and only rival. Hashirama had been the only real obstacle in the way of his new dream. Madara had never been certain, even with all the power he had gathered, that he could ever defeat his former friend – which was why he had put in place that contingency plan – and even now, he couldn’t quite believe he’d really triumphed. An incredulous laugh bubbled out of Madara’s stomach and tore its way out of his throat; he threw back his head and laughed in delight, in victory, laughed for the strange way his life had gone and Hashirama’s had ended. After all these years…he’d finally done it.

Hashirama was gone.

Madara’s stomach clenched mid-guffaw, making him double over and gasp, even as his laughter continued. Hashirama was gone, and Madara was alone, really and truly. He had expected killing Hashirama to feel like lopping off a rotting limb: painful, but ultimately necessary to ensure the survival of the body. Hashirama had once been the only light in a bleak, hopeless life…but that was long past, and Madara had a new goal to sustain him, one that Hashirama had to die to achieve. That was how things had to be. The only way for Madara to succeed in his task was for him to be completely, totally alone – and that was what he’d done, at last. Why, then, did Madara feel so horrifyingly _empty?_

It wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar feeling. Madara had always known the power he could gain by being alone: he’d felt it when he’d first turned his back on Hashirama at the riverbank, the moment his Sharingan awakened; he’d felt it when his father died and gifted him with the Mangekyō; he’d felt it most keenly of all when Izuna gave him his eyes, and with them the power of the Eternal Mangekyō; and now, he knew one final step awaited him. His eyes would change once more, and his dream would be within reach. This pain that he felt running through him like molten metal – it was here to forge him into something stronger. He’d defeated Hashirama at last, and that meant he’d fulfilled the requirements dictated by the stone tablet – Senju and Uchiha together – so his ascension must be at hand.

Sure enough, his eyes were burning, the pain of an unknown power awakening. Yet, when Madara clutched at his face with his free hand, he realized it was tears, and not blood, leaking from the corners of his tightly shut eyes. What was happening? He’d lost nothing by killing Hashirama, nothing he hadn’t already lost, so why did he feel this way? Unbidden, an image of Hashirama, holding a flower out to a frightened little girl and smiling at Madara, appeared in his mind, and Madara heard himself let out a strangled cry of anguish. No – that life was gone, nothing but a mirage, false from the beginning! Why was he mourning for something that had never been his?

Still the pain intensified, until Madara was finding it difficult to breath, his chest crushed by some invisible force. This couldn’t be right – this wasn’t the next step in his path – had he miscalculated? He’d been so certain that fighting Hashirama was the way forward, but…he hadn’t prepared himself to actually _lose_ him. For an instant he wished he could go back, try again – and as soon as the thought entered his mind, a new, sharp pain tore through his right eye. Madara cried out again and pressed his palm into his eye, but the pain was gone as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving him struggling to breathe in its wake.

“Madara?” said a voice from beneath him.

Madara opened his eyes and froze in astonishment. It was Hashirama, blinking up at him in confusion, the ragged wound in his chest _gone_ as if Madara had only dreamed it – even the tear in his shirt had disappeared.

“Did you heal yourself?” blurted Madara, though even as he said it, he knew that wasn’t the case. Both of his eyes were open, but he was seeing Hashirama with only half of his vision. The right eye – the eye in which he’d placed the Izanagi, just in case – was blind. “No, I…but – how…?”

“Your eye,” said Hashirama, frowning in concern.

“Yes,” Madara agreed, still completely in shock.

Then, to his even greater surprise, Hashirama sat up – Madara tensed, expecting an attack – and threw his arms around Madara. “Thank you,” he breathed.

“No,” said Madara, but the word came out almost as a sob. “I – I didn’t mean to bring you back!”

“I didn’t mean to let you live,” murmured Hashirama from somewhere around his ear. “Seems we both have weaknesses after all.”

“I _killed_ you!” Madara reminded him, tears falling, despite his best efforts to contain them, into Hashirama’s hair. “How can you be this way?”

“I don’t know,” said Hashirama, and clutched him tighter, one hand on Madara’s back and the other in his hair. “I don’t really care. But…I’m glad to have you back.”

This was so absolutely nonsensical that Madara could come up with no response, no course of action that would lead him forward. All he could manage to do was let Hashirama hold him through the sobs that wracked his body. There was no plan for this – nothing had been resolved, not for either of them. And yet, somehow, all Madara felt was relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm pretty sure this is not how Izanagi is supposed to work, but in my defense the established canon principle seems to be "Madara does whatever he wants".


	5. Bonsai

“Tobirama, can you come help me with something?”

“ _What?_ ” came the disgruntled answer from down the hall.

Hashirama stuck his head out the door. “I need you to take a picture for my Instagram!”

He could hear his little brother stomping down the hallway, so Hashirama returned to his table and picked up a pair of pruning shears, considering the lighting in the room and the best angle to take a photo. A moment later, Tobirama walked into the room, saw Hashirama, and immediately turned around and walked out.

“Hey! Come back!”

“No way,” said Tobirama, without turning around. “I am _not_ taking a picture of you in your underwear.”

“I’m not in _only_ my underwear!” Hashirama protested. “I’m wearing a shirt!” Granted, it was the shortest shirt he owned, and it did leave a substantial strip of skin bare, but still.

“Can I ask,” Tobirama said witheringly, stopped in the doorway but without turning around, “Why you’re posing for a half-naked picture to put on your _gardening_ blog? Don’t tell me you’re that desperate for exposure.” He was forced to turn around for this last part, because he had to raise his eyebrows at Hashirama to make sure he got the double entendre.

“Very funny, Tobirama. No, it’s not for more followers.” Although that could be a nice side effect, come to think of it. “It’s a…” Hashirama knew there was a word for this, if only he could remember – “Thirst trap!” he announced, proud of himself for getting the terminology right.

Tobirama wrinkled his nose. “Please never say that again, Anija. Do I know the person you’re posting this for?”

“Nah – I just met him yesterday! I ran into him on the subway as I was bringing home this very bonsai.” Hashirama affectionately patted the pot containing his newest leafy charge, a lovely boxwood tree rescued from the back shelves of a garden store on the other side of town. “I’m telling you, Tobirama, this tree is good luck!”

“Are you out of your mind, Anija? You gave your Instagram handle to some random stranger on the subway, and now you’re posting – ” Tobirama made a vague, sort of circular gesture to encompass Hashirama’s general state of undress “ – for him to see? I’m begging you to have just a _shred_ of common sense.”

“No, this guy is fine, I promise! I have excellent judgement about this sort of thing.” Tobirama crossed his arms and gave him a flat look that said, _Your judgement is terrible and we both know it_. Hashirama sighed. “If you help me, I’ll buy you that expensive, iced coffee you like,” he wheedled.

“Two coffees,” Tobirama snapped. “And when you end up with some creepy stalker, I’m not going to help you.”

_“Yes!_ Thank you!” Hashirama shoved his phone into Tobirama’s hands before he could change his mind and struck a pose next to the boxwood, shears in hand. He’d just finished pruning the tree, in fact – this picture was to show off his handiwork with the bonsai, too. The guy on the subway - Madara, he'd said his name was - had asked about it, after all. “Is the shape of the tree still good from that angle?”

“It’s _fine,_ ” Tobirama sighed in exasperation, and then, apparently resigned to his role, added: “Maybe turn it clockwise a little.”

Hashirama complied, spending a few more seconds arranging the miniature branches. “Did you get your exam marks back yet?” he asked, to keep Tobirama occupied while he fussed with the tree.

“Just got my mark for organic chem,” his brother replied, lips pressed together in an angry pout. “ _One_ point away from perfect. I swear, that TA was just trying to find some excuse to take marks away; he was a huge asshole to me all semester, just because I pointed out his synthesis problems had more than one correct solution.”

That explained why Tobirama was even grumpier than usual. “Well, you must have done an excellent job, if this TA could only find one point to take away,” Hashirama tried, in an attempt to mollify him; Tobirama’s stony expression remained unchanged. “Plus, the year is over, so you’ll never have to deal with him again!”

That got a grudging half-smile out of Tobirama. “Yeah – at least there’s that. Are you ready, Anija? I want to get this over with.”

\---

The picture was…it was… _different_ from the majority of Hashirama’s posts. Madara had been stalking his Instagram for the past half hour – was it really stalking if the guy had given him his handle and invited him to look for updates on the bonsai he’d been carrying? Probably not, right? – Madara had been _looking at_ his Instagram for the past half hour, and it was all innocent pictures of trees, flowers, and houseplants, meticulously cared for and clearly thriving. Occasionally, Hashirama’s smiling face appeared in the background of a photo, or his hand showed up in a close-up to showcase some clippings, but there was nothing like…that. Broad shoulders in a loosely draped shirt; smooth skin over taut muscle at his stomach; sharp hipbones leading down to –

“What are you looking at, Nii-san?”

Madara jumped, fumbled his phone, and dropped it onto his chest. “Izuna! How many times do I have to tell you to knock?”

“Oh, it was porn? Sorry,” said Izuna, sticking his face obnoxiously through the crack between Madara’s bedroom door and the wall.

“It wasn’t porn,” Madara replied reflexively, before realizing that not only was he now going to have to provide an explanation, but he sort of _had_ been looking at porn. Almost. “It’s this guy I met yesterday,” Madara mumbled at his phone. “I'm on his Instagram.”

“You met someone?!” Izuna exclaimed in delight. Madara sighed – there was no keeping his little brother out of his business now. Sure enough, Izuna threw open his door the rest of the way and bounded over to sit next to Madara on the bed. “How did this miracle occur?”

“It was…kind of accidental.” Madara wasn’t exactly the sociable type, and he certainly didn’t strike up conversations with strangers on public transit – in fact, he usually did his best to maintain a menacing aura so that people didn’t talk to _him_. But yesterday, after staring for probably a solid five minutes at the impressively muscled forearms of the guy standing in front of him, Madara had realized even those muscles might get tired of holding an entire bonsai tree, and he should probably offer the guy his seat. The man had accepted the offer with a very genuine-sounding thanks, and then had proceeded to flash Madara an implausibly sunny grin, gesture to the bonsai in his lap, and say, “Trees-ed to meet you!”. The line was so terrible Madara hadn't been able to let it go without comment, and before he knew what was happening, he’d been talking to the guy for twenty minutes and had acquired his Instagram handle.

“Well, can I see a picture?” Izuna demanded.

Madara winced, rapidly weighed his options, and reluctantly unlocked his phone to show Izuna the picture he’d been looking at. Izuna, shockingly, didn’t comment on the nature of the photo, but squinted down at it and said, “Hm…I think I know that guy.”

“You do?”

“I’m pretty sure I met him on campus one time, when I was waiting for your lab to finish. He was waiting for someone too, so we chatted for a few minutes. Nice guy.”

With sudden, dawning horror, Madara asked, “Was he hitting on you?”

“No, no! Nothing like that. I think he’s just a friendly type of person.”

Well, a man who flirted with anything that moved – or worse, Izuna – would have been a crushing disappointment, but a ‘friendly type of person’ was nearly as bad. Hashirama had given him his Instagram handle and told him to watch for a post with an update on ‘his’ bonsai, and said bonsai update had included a half-naked Hashirama. Madara had nearly dared to interpret that as interest…but if Hashirama was just a ‘friendly type of person,’ Madara could have been reading the cues entirely wrong. Perhaps their conversation yesterday had just been a fun way to pass the time, and the photo was intended for somebody else.

As if reading his mind, Izuna said, “You should ask him out for drinks or something.”

“I followed his Instagram,” Madara announced, “And that is exactly the number of moves I am willing to make. I’m busy, you know – I can’t go chasing all the time like you.” Just one of many excellent reasons to save that picture for his fantasies and never meet the real person ever again.

“You just finished marking all your exams,” Izuna countered. “I know you’re not that busy. Come on, Nii-san, be reasonable: when are you ever going to get another chance like this again?”

“Thanks for that, Izuna,” Madara muttered. Who said he was even interested in dating, anyways? Relationships were messy, confusing, and time-consuming; not at all worth the hassle –

Madara’s phone buzzed. Instagram message from Hashirama: _Hey, sorry if this is presumptuous, but do you want to meet up for drinks sometime?_

Madara stared at his screen. Then, disbelieving, he held out the phone for Izuna to read. A stunned moment of silence, and then Izuna shrieked, “You have to go!”

Well, maybe this wasn’t quite as complicated as Madara had feared. Izuna was right; he wasn’t _that_ busy. Pursing his lips in concentration, Madara typed out a reply.

\---

Tobirama had been completely wrong, as it turned out: Madara was neither a creep nor a stalker. He was a grad student with an acerbic tongue, passionate opinions, and a lovely embarrassed blush. Hashirama had become so absorbed in the conversation he’d completely forgotten to order more drinks, which was seriously unlike him – although, since he’d made up his mind to pay for the date, it was probably for the best.

“I can’t believe I’m here,” Madara remarked abruptly, somewhere around hour three or four.

“You mean existentially?”

“Literally here, in a bar, having drinks with you,” Madara clarified. “I mean – my younger brother is convinced I’m incapable of socializing. He was probably planning to set me up with one of his friends from…art school…” He leveled a suspicious glare at Hashirama as he said these last few words. “He didn’t put you up to this, did he? What’s he paying you?”

“It wasn’t your brother,” said Hashirama seriously. “It was the bonsai.”

“The bonsai paid you to take me out for drinks?”

“The bonsai brought us together.” Hashirama raised his glass; Madara followed suit, looking a little bemused but playing along, nonetheless. “To the bonsai!” Hashirama announced. He drained his glass, surreptitiously watched the way Madara’s throat moved as he drank, and thought. Tobirama would definitely judge him for thinking it, but though Hashirama barely knew Madara, he felt an immediate connection to him. He didn’t want to lose this opportunity.

“Madara,” he said. Madara looked at him with his dark, expressive eyes, shadows from his hair falling across his face, and Hashirama bit his lip. _Careful_ , he thought. “I really am glad you’re here, in this bar, having drinks with me.”

Madara flushed again, his cheeks and the tips of his ears turning red; Hashirama wondered if he could make Madara flush anywhere else. “I’m glad, too,” he said, low and a little shaky, as though he was unused to saying things like that.

Hashirama immediately abandoned his caution of just a moment before and said, “Do you want to get out of here? We can go to my place – my brother won’t be home.”

“Yes,” said Madara. “Yes, definitely.”

\---

Hashirama had the bonsai – Madara’s bonsai, the one he’d toasted that evening – set up in pride of place in his bedroom. That should have prompted Madara to suspect Hashirama had planned for this to happen, and make him annoyed at Hashirama’s confidence. He should also have been a lot more panicked when he looked at Hashirama’s face, sleepy and content, with his previously immaculate hair tangled on the pillow, and felt a tug somewhere under his sternum. Instead, he looked at that bonsai on his way out of the room and thought, _Thanks._

Hashirama’s apartment wasn’t very large, considering it housed two people, but it was still annoying to search for the bathroom in an unfamiliar place. Madara had been sure Hashirama had told him it was down the hall on the left, but now he was in the entranceway. He was about to retrace his steps and try again when he heard a key jingling in the door.

“Hey, Anija, I just came back for – ” The man in the doorway spotted Madara and froze. Madara, too, had frozen in horror, because even in the dim light he’d immediately recognized Hashirama’s brother.

“You!” yelped Senju Tobirama.

“No,” Madara said, backing up a step. “Absolutely not.”

Tobirama pointed an accusing finger at him. “I was supposed to be done with you!” he hissed. “You took off that one mark on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Oh, because you think all your solutions are perfect, do you?” He’d certainly acted that way all through that torturous organic chemistry class.

“Tobirama?” came Hashirama’s concerned voice from the hallway.

“Tell me you’re not sleeping with my TA, Anija!” Tobirama practically wailed, and suddenly, Madara’s annoyance at the appearance of his least favourite student was replaced with pure schadenfreude.

“I’m afraid he very much is,” he said, before Hashirama could reply. “So you’d better get used to seeing a lot of me.” And to his great satisfaction, he watched Hashirama’s face brighten in delight, and Tobirama’s drop in utter horror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It actually took me a while to remember where I heard the line "Trees-ed to meet you". If you can guess where it came from, I think we should be friends.  
> The drawing that inspired this fic (plus bonus sexy Madara) can be found [here!](https://thelistening.tumblr.com/post/618114331807236096/made-this-hashirama-prunes-his-bonsai-postcard) Also please look at [this](https://ancharan.tumblr.com/post/618112910059847680/bein-real-cheeky-and-making-my-prompt-submission) awesome drawing of Hashirama's fateful thirst trap!!


	6. Mythology AU

They were children when they met. They had to have been children, for if they had met as adults, they would have known too much, and their meeting would have been very different. 

It happened on an awful, stormy day in early spring, and it began with Hashirama huddled and miserable in a cave. Even at fourteen, Hashirama knew the mountain as well as he knew his own family – he wouldn’t have ventured out this far into the forest if there had been any chance of a storm like this. And yet, despite the season, there was a _blizzard_ raging outside. It was a tengu wind, Hashirama knew; only a tengu wind could rise so suddenly and sting so badly. He was lucky he’d been able to take shelter in this cave, but now he was trapped without warm clothing or the tools to make a fire. Curled into a ball with his arms around his knees, Hashirama had no choice but to wait out the storm, and eventually shivered himself into a fitful sleep.

When he awoke, the cave was dark, and he was wonderfully, deliciously _warm_. Hashirama wondered for a moment if he’d frozen to death, and this was the moment before his new reincarnation. But, no – he could still feel the rocky floor of the cave where he’d gone to sleep digging uncomfortably into his legs. He was warm because he was wrapped in something, something soft…something that was moving, gently and rhythmically, as if it were breathing. Hashirama reached out a tentative hand and felt soft feathers beneath his fingertips.

His breath caught in his throat. The tengu – for that was what the creature curled around Hashirama had to be – shifted around him with a whisper of feathers. And then, in the darkness, Hashirama found himself staring into a single, glowing red eye.

Hashirama’s insides had turned to ice, but he still retained enough of his wits to remember to be polite. “Hello, Tengu-sama,” he whispered to the eye.

The eye blinked.

Feeling a little encouraged, Hashirama said, “Thank you for protecting me from your storm.”

This got an affronted shuffling of feathers; Hashirama backtracked. “Not your storm?” Another blink – acknowledgement, Hashirama imagined. “Ah, I see. You’re stuck in here, too.” The tengu didn’t react to that, which Hashirama took to mean he’d guessed right. Without thinking, he ran his fingers through the feathers under his hand and was surprised when the tengu leaned against him, like a cat asking for more scratches. “Well,” he said, “Thank you for keeping me company. At least we can wait out the storm together.”

The eye disappeared; the tengu shifted position again, tucking its head back under its wing, or so Hashirama imagined. Hashirama knew he should take this chance and run – tengu were dangerous and unpredictable, wild spirits of the mountains, and there was no telling what this one might do to him – but the blizzard was still howling outside, and at least in here it was warm. Seeing no better option, Hashirama leaned back against his new, feathery companion, closed his eyes, and drifted back to sleep.

When he woke again, the cave was lit with sunlight, and the tengu was gone.

\---

Madara wasn’t exactly sure why he bothered to find the human again. He was already sliding dangerously in the direction of his father’s bad side – that blizzard had been a nasty reprimand, with Madara still too young to control his powers well enough to fight back. Now that his flight feathers had grown in, Madara had found he wasn’t terribly interested in the clan politics he was supposed to be learning. His father’s world was full of restrictions: don’t use any of your powers without permission; don’t question your elders; and, most importantly of all, don’t come into contact with humans. And that, perhaps, was why Madara let himself slide out of the shadows of the trees and into view of the young human.

The boy in front of him tensed, reaching instinctively for an arrow; Madara prepared himself to fight, but the human relaxed and lowered his bow. “Tengu-sama,” he said, and smiled.

Madara looked down at himself in confusion. “How did you know?” He’d appeared in human form – had he made a mistake somewhere? But no: his purple robe was a perfectly normal style for a human, and on his head was definitely spiky black hair, not feathers.

The human boy in front of him shrugged. “I don’t know – you just sort of… _feel_ the same?”

“That’s weird,” Madara informed him.

To Madara’s surprise, the boy sighed deeply. “I knew it,” he said, utterly dejected. “I must really be a freak if even a spirit thinks I’m weird.”

“Wait – that’s not what I – ” Madara stuttered to a halt, realizing that the boy wasn’t distraught at all – he was _laughing_ at him from under those bangs. “Hey, what do you mean ‘even a spirit’?!”

The human raised his head to reveal a smug, aggravating smile. “Are you really my age?” he asked cheerfully. “To think I was so scared of you!”

Madara drew on the shadows around him, forming the shape of massive, ever-shifting wings to tower over his back, and let his black human eyes flash red. “You _should_ be afraid of me!” he hissed.

The human’s eyes widened in awe, but to Madara’s chagrin, he watched this show of power without the least sign of fear. “Wow!” he said to the writhing mass of shadow. “What’s your name? Mine’s Hashirama!”

Madara sighed, content for the moment to at least have impressed the human – Hashirama – and let himself shrink back to his still-unfamiliar human form. “You can call me Madara,” he said.

“It’s nice to meet you again, Madara,” said Hashirama, and dipped his head in a clumsy bow.

“Hmph.” Madara crossed his arms, trying not to show that he was pleased. “So, Hashirama, what are you doing this far into the forest?”

“Looking for mushrooms!” Hashirama replied, with more excitement than this answer really warranted. “I know I saw some good ones around here the other day.”

“You’re lucky you’re with a tengu, then. I know this forest better than any human.”

“Oh, is that so!”

As the two of them left to walk together through the forest, neither of them noticed the tiny seedlings that sprung to life in Hashirama’s footsteps.

\---

When Hashirama was nineteen, a beautiful young woman with fiery red hair came to his town.

“She’s definitely interested in you,” he was informed by his little brother, Tobirama, with a healthy amount of disdain.

“Can you at least pretend to stay out of my business?” Hashirama snapped back, uncharacteristically annoyed. If he was honest with himself, he had mixed feelings about Tobirama’s analysis. If anyone had asked him half a year ago if he would like a gorgeous woman to mysteriously arrive out of nowhere and fall in love with him, he would have offered his right hand to make it happen – but although Hashirama had always been a bit of a romantic, lately his thoughts on that score had turned in a…different direction.

But that was only half of the problem. Though nobody else had seemed to notice, Hashirama had realized right away that there was something different about the woman calling herself Mito.

“You’re not entirely human, are you?” he asked her, the next time they were alone together. Hashirama had always been in favour of the direct approach.

She stopped in the action of brushing a strand of hair behind his ear, and carefully withdrew her hand, looking at him with sharp, bright eyes. “You’re perceptive,” she said. “I should have anticipated that.”

“I have some experience with shapeshifters,” Hashirama told her, a little ruefully. “But I don’t think I’ve met one like you…?” He made the end of his statement into a question, hoping she would answer.

“Can’t you guess?” she asked playfully. At Hashirama’s flat look, she said, “Come on. A girl can’t give up all her secrets that easily.”

“Are you actually like this?” Hashirama asked. “Or are you trying to seduce me?”

“Er…” for the first time, Mito actually looked a little awkward. “I’ll be honest: I was trying to seduce you.”

“Don’t worry; I’ve heard the stories. Humans are kind of hard to interact with unless you’re giving them something they want, right? I don’t take it personally.”

Mito laughed at that, the light catching in her bright red hair as she did. “You’re a very strange human, Hashirama!”

“I’ve heard that before,” Hashirama replied with amusement. More seriously, he added, “But I don’t understand why you would choose _me_ to seduce. What do you want from me?”

“Like I said, Hashirama: I have to keep my secrets.” Mito looked at him appraisingly, her head cocked to one side. “Let’s just say you have some interesting qualities – for a human.”

“Fine – you don’t have to tell me. But can you drop the whole – ?” Hashirama waved his hands vaguely in her direction, too uncomfortable to actually articulate what he meant; she smirked at him in response. “Whatever you want, you can just ask me, alright? I mean – I’d like to be friends.”

“Alright,” she said, sounding surprised. “Friends it is.”

\---

“Kitsune,” Madara spat.

The fox sat back on her haunches and began to unconcernedly wash one of her paws. “Tengu-san,” she replied.

Madara, roosted in the branches above her, hunched his wings threateningly. _He_ was the power in the forests around here, and she could do with a reminder of that. “Stay away from the human boy, Kitsune. He’s _mine_ – understand?”

“Relax, Tengu-san. He already called me on the trick.” She dipped her head at him in sarcastic deference. “He’s all yours for the seducing.”

Madara wasn’t buying it. “What do you want with him?”

The fox cocked her head to one side quizzically. “The same thing you want, I assume? He may be a human, but you must know he has the power of the forest inside him.”

He’d guessed it years ago, of course, but hearing another magical being acknowledge it like that made Madara’s stomach drop. “You feel drawn to him, don’t you?”

“Others will be drawn to him as well, as his power grows stronger. You did well to get in with him early, Tengu-san. Better act fast to lock him down.”

“Kitsune,” Madara called, as she turned to leave. His stomach was in knots now; asking her this would be showing unforgivable weakness, but he might never have another chance to have his suspicions confirmed. “What does it feel like when you’re with him?” he asked. “You said the power of the forest draws you to him. Does it make you feel breathless when he looks at you? Does it…” he swallowed hard. “Does it give you a hollow feeling when you say goodbye to him?”

The fox looked at him in silent surprise for a moment, and then barked out a laugh. “No, Tengu-san, it does not!” she said, laughter in her voice. “I feel a pull towards him, yes, but my heart is still my own. I believe _you_ are in love with him.”

“Oh,” said Madara gruffly. “Er, thanks.”

When the kitsune had gone, he considered his course of action. In any other circumstance, Madara would have done his best to deny his feelings about Hashirama – he’d been managing that successfully for years now, and could probably have sustained it for quite some time. But this was different; now he had _competition_ , and Madara’s nature couldn’t ignore that.

So what if the kitsune was trying to seduce _his_ human? Madara could perform a seduction as well, and he had the advantage of knowledge, thanks to years of friendship with Hashirama. He could win this battle – all it would take was some careful planning and an artful execution.

\---

“Where did you find this?” Hashirama exclaimed in delight.

Madara shrugged nonchalantly, his blue-black mane of hair shifting over his shoulders, but Hashirama could tell he was pleased with Hashirama’s reaction. “I told you: I know this forest better than anyone.”

By now, Hashirama knew this wasn’t quite true: he knew the mountain at least as well as his tengu friend, sometimes even better. Even so, Hashirama would be able to equal Madara’s skill at finding far-off treasures of the forest, for the simple reason that Madara could fly. Hashirama cradled the branch Madara had brought him in his hands, admiring the small white flowers with their elegant, delicate petals. “I’ll bet I can graft his onto one of my trees,” he said, already planning how he would do it.

“So…you like it?” Madara asked, a strange edge in his voice.

Hashirama beamed at him. “Of course I do! Thank you, Madara!”

His friend turned a very interesting shade of pink. “Great! Um…good, that’s good.”

Hashirama waited patiently for a further explanation – an account of how he’d stumbled across a wild apricot tree, maybe, or something that had prompted this gift – but when none was forthcoming, he prompted gently, “I didn’t know you were so interested in plants.”

“I am, uh, interested – that is to say, I was thinking…uh…” To Hashirama’s fascination, the tengu was flushing even further. Was this some strange consequence of his shapeshifting? Now a little concerned, Hashirama leaned forwards to get a better look.

“Are you alright?” he asked. Maybe he was overheating? Hashirama laid a hand against Madara’s forehead to check.

“Hgk,” said Madara.

“Hmm, you do feel a little warm,” Hashirama told him. “If you were human, I’d tell you to get some rest, but what about a spirit like you? I have to admit I don’t really know anything about – ”

And then he shut up, because Madara was kissing him. Later, Hashirama would remember how Madara’s hands on his shoulders were trembling a little, and how Madara’s hair felt almost exactly like his feathers had under Hashirama’s fingertips all those years ago. But in the moment, all he could think was _why haven’t I done this before?_

After just a brief moment, Madara pulled back, his eyes wide and startled. “I didn’t mean for it to happen like that!” he blurted.

Hashirama blinked at him. “What?” was all he could manage to say.

“I’m sorry! I had it all planned out, and then I just…went and…”

He looked so distressed; Hashirama felt the only reasonable response was to reassure him by leaning forwards and kissing him again.

When they parted, Hashirama smiled at him, suddenly feeling shy. “I’m glad you did,” he said.

Madara looked about as thunderstruck as Hashirama felt, but at these words, a slow grin spread across his face. “You mean…you wanted me to do that?”

“Madara, I’ve wanted that for ages!”

“But,” Madara objected, “What about Mito?”

“Mito? Oh! I’m not interested in her like that.”

“Good,” said Madara huffily, “You know she’s only trying to seduce you for your powers, right?”

Up until now, Hashirama had been just barely staying afloat in the rapids of this conversation, but this last question threw him completely. Confused, he pulled a little away from Madara and repeated, “Powers?”

“Yes, the power of the forest! That…you…” Madara trailed off, seeing the expression on Hashirama’s face. “You…didn’t know?”

“No,” Hashirama whispered. He’d been about to deny the possibility that there was anything supernatural about him – he was an ordinary human, had been all his life – but the words evaporated on his tongue. He wasn’t really an ordinary human at all, was he? Sure, his life was ordinary enough, in general: he foraged and hunted in the forest; he tended his garden and grew fruit trees; he did his best to live in peace with the spirits of the mountain. He was just a bit unusually good at finding what he was looking for, at predicting the changing weather and coaxing things to grow. If that talent really did have a magical explanation, then the one truly unusual thing about his life suddenly made a lot of sense: his inexplicable friendship with a tengu.

“Is that why you showed yourself to me?” Hashirama asked, the thick certainty of it beginning to clog his throat. Why else would a tengu, a spirit born from a falling star, show any interest in a human like him?

“No!” Madara protested, vehement at first – but then he paused, considering. “Well – maybe at first, but I didn’t even know about your magic back then. And it has nothing to do with the way I feel about you now!”

These words were meant to reassure him, but instead, an even more horrible thought took root in Hashirama’s mind. If Hashirama had somehow influenced Madara before they’d even met, without either of them realizing it…was it possible he’d _made_ Madara kiss him?

“I think you should go,” he said. Anger at Madara for keeping this secret from him was mixing with guilt at the thought of what he might have unwittingly done to his best friend, making him feel sick to his stomach.

“Hashirama – !”

“ _Go!_ ” Hashirama shouted.

Madara disappeared in a burst of feathers, leaving Hashirama alone.

\---

The wind was howling as fiercely as it had the day they had met, but this time, instead of snow, rain was falling in a deluge that soaked through Madara’s feathers in seconds. In his turmoil, he’d settled on neither bird nor human form, but something in between – he was walking on human legs, but catching the wind of the storm in feathered wings sprouting from his back, and his hands, when he looked at them, had birdlike talons on the end of each finger. He glared furiously at a tree in front of him; a bolt of lighting flashed, and the tree exploded, splinters of wood flying past him in the storm. Madara felt, for a moment, just the tiniest bit of satisfaction before fury and anguish overtook him once again.

_Why_ had he let slip the truth about Hashirama’s powers? No – why hadn’t he told his friend about them sooner? Everything had been going perfectly – not exactly the way Madara had planned, but still, he’d kissed Hashirama! And Hashirama had said he was glad Madara had done it, and had kissed him back! How had things gone so wrong, so quickly? It was all his fault – Hashirama thought he’d lied to him; thought he was using him! Alright, Madara hadn’t told him about his abilities, but it wasn’t like he was trying to win him over just to take advantage of him; not like that kitsune. It wasn’t fair!

As if summoned by Madara’s angry thoughts, a voice reached his ears over the screaming of the wind: “You seem like you’re in quite the state.”

“Kitsune!” Madara bellowed, more than happy to direct his rage at a more tangible target. There was the fox, sitting placidly in a tree despite the fury of the storm around her. “This is your fault! You told me he’d called you on your trick!”

“I didn’t say he knew _why_ I was trying to trick him. I’m afraid this is entirely your fault, Tengu-san. His death will be your fault as well, if you keep wandering around here blowing up trees.”

Madara blinked water from his eyes, fear momentarily taking the place of rage. “What do you mean, his death?”

“The boy doesn’t know the strength of his own powers – he doesn’t even know he’s causing this storm,” said Mito, with pity in her voice. “He’s out wandering around, looking for you on the mountain. I’m afraid – well, you already know what rain like this means.”

Horror seized Madara by the throat. Hashirama knew this mountain better than anyone, better even than him; he knew the danger of flash floods. But if he was really out in the forest looking for Madara – if he was beside himself enough to cause a storm like this, and not even realize it –

“Where is he?” Madara howled.

“Fly northeast,” said the fox, “And hurry.”

Madara launched himself into the air, not bothering to alter his form, knowing his own magic would carry him despite the winds. He fought his way through the storm, trying to feel the familiar tug of the power inside Hashirama calling to the power inside him – but now that he was looking for it, the feel of Hashirama’s magic was everywhere, seething around him. His friend was the one causing the storm, just as Mito had said. Just as Madara was beginning to despair of finding him amidst the frothing treetops, he spotted a familiar white and green robe in a clearing below and dove headfirst towards it.

He crashed into Hashirama at full force, sending both of them sprawling on the ground. Madara, clinging tight to his friend, somehow ended up with Hashirama beneath him, rain falling onto Hashirama’s face; Madara hunched his wings to shield both of them from the storm.

“Wow,” Hashirama breathed. “Look at you. I – I think you have fangs. Why do you have fangs?”

“Why are you out wandering around putting yourself in danger?” Madara shot back.

Hashirama put a hand up to Madara’s face. At his touch, Madara realized he had little feathers sprouting from the skin there as well. “I was looking for you! Mito said you were in danger from the storm I caused.”

“Mito said – she told me _you_ were in danger!”

They stared at each other for a moment, Madara feeling the rain against his wings slow from a deluge to a trickle, until Hashirama suddenly burst out laughing. “I should’ve known,” sighed Madara, over Hashirama’s giggles. “Kitsune are born to play tricks.”

“Madara,” Hashirama said, growing serious again. “She also explained about my powers. I…thought I might have accidentally used them to trick you into liking me, but Mito called me an idiot and told me I don’t have that kind of ability. I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier.” 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Madara said earnestly. “I really thought you knew.”

“I guess I really am an idiot.”

“I guess so,” said Madara, and leaned down to kiss him. Because of this, neither of them noticed the sun emerge from behind the layers of cloud, or heard the bark of a fox’s laugh from the forest.

There is more to this story, of course, for such an unusual pair as them could hardly manage to lead an ordinary existence. But all the legends and stories they would later come to inhabit began like this: chance and a little bit of trickery, and spirit and human together in the stormy woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's](https://thelistening.tumblr.com/post/618202968697798656/carved-this-one-out-for-the-latest-from) another super neat carving, this time featuring Madara in bird form and Hashirama's sneaky powers! Also check out [this](https://10231224.tumblr.com/post/618914660218978304/doodles-based-on-this-hashimada-mythology-au-fic) gorgeous art of Hashirama and tengu!Madara, which I have stared at for 5 hours now.


	7. Village

Madara knew the Mokuton – he knew it better, he was certain, than anyone save Hashirama himself. He had fought Hashirama’s monstrous jutsu more times than he could even remember; he alone had seen the Mokuton pushed to the limits of its potential, in the battle that had somehow ended in the founding of a village. He knew the Mokuton, and he knew it as a wild, furious force of destruction, gigantic golems made of wood and branches rending flesh and bone, entire forests growing in seconds with the power of Hashirama’s chakra.

And that was why Madara couldn’t have heard right. “You want to build _what?_ ”

“A house,” Hashirama repeated, so earnestly that Madara actually believed he was serious. “I think it’ll be a nice gesture, you know? From the head of the Senju clan to the head of the Uchiha clan: the first official residence in our new village!”

“You want to build me a house using your Mokuton,” Madara summarized, just to be sure he really understood.

“Right! I can make it exactly to your standards, as long as it’s made out of wood.”

What would a Mokuton-made house look like? Try as he might, Madara could only imagine a house-shaped thicket of tangled branches – or maybe a hollow wooden monster like the kind Hashirama had used against the Susano’o. Not exactly a particularly appealing style. “Have you ever done this before?” Madara asked.

“Well, not really. But how hard can it be?” Hashirama was wearing an expression that had become very familiar to Madara over the past month: hope mixed with determination. If Hashirama hadn’t already demonstrated his convictions convincingly enough by nearly slitting his own stomach open, he’d proven his true feelings another hundred times over by the work he’d done at building this village. He was endlessly patient at negotiating; he addressed the pettiest complaints from members of either clan; he personally attended to the injuries of his former enemies and wept over the graves of the ones he couldn’t save. If it was possible for a village to be founded on willpower alone, Hashirama was going to do it.

He was also incredibly persistent in his attempts to win back the friendship he’d once shared with Madara. Even after a month of trying, Hashirama didn’t seem to realize that in the wake of Izuna’s death, Madara was less of a person and more of a gaping wound. Hashirama’s company made the raw edges of that wound ache; and yet, as time went on, Madara found himself paradoxically craving his company more and more. It put Madara in a state of perpetual frustration with himself.

Hashirama was looking at him expectantly. Madara shook himself out of his thoughts. “Well…I don’t see the harm in letting you try,” he said, and Hashirama’s face lit with delight.

“You won’t be disappointed!” he promised, and Madara felt the warm flutter of something that should have been long dead inside his chest. Hashirama always did this – always acted so happy at the slightest friendly word. Madara needed to stop thinking about it before he came completely undone.

Fortunately, Hashirama was ready with the next step. “I brought paper and ink,” he said, holding said items up to prove it. “I was thinking we could work on a design together. That way I’ll be able to make exactly the house you want!”

“I don’t really care what it looks like, Hashirama. Just do whatever you want.”

Taking no heed of this, Hashirama unrolled his paper onto his makeshift desk. Like all the buildings in the fledgling village, the structure they were currently using as village headquarters was a temporary building, more of a camping pavilion than a government office; no wonder Hashirama was so keen to start building something permanent. “You say that now,” he told Madara, “But once you’re actually living there, I bet you’ll have lots of opinions on how you want the house to be laid out. Do yourself a favour and just plan it with me!” He countered Madara’s skeptical look with his own pleading one, lower lip jutting out just a little – ugh, Madara should not have found that pout endearing. “Please?”

“Fine,” said Madara gruffly, earning another beaming smile from Hashirama – _damn it!_ He picked up a pen to distract himself, and tried to think about what houses were supposed to look like. The official residence of a clan head should be large, right? With…stairs? Did he want stairs?

He jumped a little at the feeling of Hashirama’s hand on his shoulder. Instead of just pulling up another chair, Hashirama was leaning over him to look at the paper, one hand on Madara’s shoulder and the other on the desk. Madara swallowed hard – he wasn’t used to the kind of casual touches Hashirama so easily bestowed, the friendly hand on his shoulder or his arm, the way their fingers brushed when Hashirama handed him something. There was nobody alive, save Hashirama, who would dare get close enough to Madara to touch him; Hashirama did it as if it were nothing, and that surprised Madara every time. He rarely had his Sharingan activated these days, but the feeling of those touches still lingered like a recorded memory.

“I already put down the dimensions of the space we’re working with,” said Hashirama, his breath tickling Madara’s ear, “But the house doesn’t have to take up the entire lot. What do you think about including a garden?”

“You’re right,” said Madara, and as Hashirama got that delighted look on his face, continued, “I can’t let you just do what you want with the house. I forgot you have terrible taste.”

“Ah,” sighed Hashirama, his fingers clenching on Madara’s shoulder. “You wound me!” Madara expected him to fall into his usual fake-depressed act, but instead he only said, “What do you want for the outside, then?”

\---

Hashirama started building in the early afternoon a few days later, after spending all morning in meetings (“You’re just using this as an excuse to get out of work,” Madara accused, and Hashirama didn’t deny it). As far as Madara knew, this plan hadn’t been widely announced, but a small crowd of onlookers gathered as Hashirama stood thoughtfully in front of the empty space supposedly dedicated to Madara’s house.

“I’m not really sure how long this will take,” Hashirama admitted. He had the scroll with the plans in one hand, and kept glancing from the scroll to the ground in front of them and then back to the scroll. For the first time since the signing of the peace treaty, he actually looked unsure.

“This is a completely different scale than you’re used to, isn’t it?” Madara guessed. Hashirama looked over at him in surprise; Madara shrugged. “Don’t worry so much about the details,” he said.

“Alright,” said Hashirama, “I’m just going to go slowly and carefully.” He set the scroll on the ground, flexed his hands, and took a deep breath. “Here goes!” He formed a series of hand seals and then held his hands out, palms forwards. A small tremor ran through the ground; a moment later, six smooth, round beams of wood broke through the soil and rose steadily until they reached the height of a two-story house.

A few scattered cheers came from the gawkers behind them as Hashirama broke off the jutsu and looked over at Madara with a pleased expression. “There!” he exclaimed in triumph. “How’s that?”

“How are you planning to put the roof on?” Madara asked. “Can you grow it out from the beams?”

Hashirama looked at his handiwork, considering. “I, uh,” he said, “I actually hadn’t thought of that.”

Madara snorted. “I can see this is going to take some trial and error,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it, Hashirama. Just remember: I expect this house to be _exactly_ the way we planned – got it?”

“It’ll be perfect,” Hashirama assured him, too busy frowning at his wooden beams to catch the sarcasm.

“Good luck,” replied Madara doubtfully, and left him to figure it out.

He expected Hashirama to find him at some point and deliver the exciting news that his new house had been completed, but the afternoon passed with no sign of the Senju leader. Finally, as the sun was beginning to set, Madara’s curiosity got the better of him, and he went to find Hashirama.

He noticed the house first. It was large – nearly twice what Madara had expected – and, well, it…certainly had character, as Izuna might have said (Madara did his best to put that thought out of his mind). The elegant sloping roof Madara had envisioned was there, but had pitched drunkenly to one side; the walls were buckled and warped, barely meeting at corners; there were large holes not even slightly resembling windows; and to top it off, the pillars set at the entranceway were sprouting leaves, as if they had rebelled from the role Hashirama had set for them and decided to go feral.

Hashirama himself was still standing in almost the exact spot Madara had left him, still staring out at his handiwork.

“What happened here?” asked Madara, walking up behind him.

Hashirama jumped and spun to face him with a panicked look in his eye. “Madara!” he exclaimed, sounding a little frantic. “Don’t look yet! It’s not done!”

“I can see that,” Madara said, quirking an eyebrow. He wasn’t particularly upset at the way his house was turning out – in fact, this might be the first thing he’d found amusing in months. “Did you know the front pillars are putting out new leaves?”

Hashirama whipped his head back around to level a literally withering glare at the defiant pillars; the leaves shrunk back into the wood as if ashamed of themselves, only to be replaced by sneaky new buds the moment Hashirama’s back was turned. “I’m sorry about this,” Hashirama said. “I promise I can fix it – I just need a little more time.”

He sounded exhausted – and now that Madara was looking at him, he looked worse than the house. His brown skin had gone ashen, and he had strands of hair plastered to his sweaty face and neck. He was also swaying very slightly where he stood, which Madara thought was a bit alarming: he’d seen Hashirama stumbling drunk, but never swaying from exhaustion, not even after hours of all-out battle. Madara took a step forwards in concern, unthinkingly putting out a hand to steady him. “Are you alright, Hashirama?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Hashirama said with conviction, “I’m absolutely fine.” And then his eyes rolled back in his head, giving Madara just enough warning to catch him before he crumpled to the ground.

“Hashirama!” He was limp and motionless in Madara’s arms, head lolled back and eyes closed; Madara ended up kneeling awkwardly on the ground with Hashirama’s head in his lap, arms around his torso. Madara shook him gently, trying not to panic. Of course Hashirama would go completely undefeated on the battlefield, only to be bested by a fucking _house_. Madara freed a hand to touch Hashirama’s face and neck, trying to figure out if he was breathing, if he still had a pulse. “Hashirama!” he called again, more frantically this time, “Are you okay? Please be okay! I don’t know what to do!”

Before panic could set in completely, Madara, watching Hashirama’s face, saw his lips turn up just the slightest bit in a smile. Madara shook him again, not so gently this time. “Hashirama, if you’re faking this, I’m going to burn down every house you ever try to build!”

At this, Hashirama opened his eyes and gave Madara a weak but extremely pleased grin. “I wasn’t faking,” he said, “It’s just – this isn’t a bad way to wake up.”

Madara was suddenly _extremely_ aware of the fact that Hashirama was lying in his lap, with Madara’s arms around him, and Madara’s hand on his cheek. He snatched back his hand as if he’d been burned, and then, to try to cover his reaction, said, “What, with me yelling in your face? I’ll make a note of it.”

“Can I stay here for a minute? I don’t feel strong enough to stand up yet,” Hashirama said with a completely unconvincing innocent expression. Madara should have just dumped him on his face in the dirt, but for some reason unknown to him, he stayed where he was instead.

“What was it about the house that affected you so badly?” he asked.

“It’s the fine control,” Hashirama said, a little abashed. “It’s like…it’s like trying to water a potted plant using a waterfall. If I try too hard, I just destroy the whole thing.” He sighed. “It used to be like this all the time when I was younger – just passing out once I exhausted my control.”

“You don’t need to build all these houses on your own, you know,” Madara told him. “Stone foundations might be a good idea, too. Did you know my clan loves fire?”

“I didn’t think of that – that’s a good point.” Hashirama was looking up at him with a strange expression – not his familiar hopeful/determined look, but something soft, fond and a little wondering. It left Madara feeling strangely warm again. “I really do want to help with your house, though. I’ll get rid of this mess and we can just start again.”

“Alright, Hashirama,” Madara said, around the warm fluttering in his chest. “But I want to keep those pillars you made. I really like the leaves.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun doing these prompts & seeing all the super cool art & fic people posted for them. Thank you for reading & extra for commenting! Getting to interact with all of you has really made this event amazing.


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